POWER June 2022 - 26
PLANT DECOMMISSIONING
safe operational shut down, through decommissioning
and asset recovery, to repurposing
of the property to benefit the
community and optimize your return on
investment (ROI). "
TRC says its RE POWER process consists
of three elements:
2. The McPherson Board of Public Utilities
repurposed the city's Power Plant No. 1 to
create office space for the community-owned
utility. The architects managed to retain some
of the plant's history, such as the turbine generator,
shown here, in a museum area of the
building. Source: POWER
There is more to repurposing shuttered
fossil plants than rescuing architectural
gems. A lot more (see sidebar " A
Nuclear Caveat " ).
A year ago, the U.S. non-profit energy
think tank Institute for Energy Economics
and Financial Analysis reported,
" Repurposing coal plants into solar and
battery can pay up to 5 times more than
decommissioning. " The
analysis
concludes,
" For power utilities, repurposing
coal plants offers many advantages.
" First, repurposing reduces decommissioning
costs because it avoids some
of the environmental remediation requirements
and allows partial re-use of
existing assets such as the degraded
land, as well as the generators, substations
and grid connections. Second,
it reduces the cost of commissioning
greenfield renewable capacity at the
same site. Third, for coal plants located in
urban and semi-urban areas, repurposing
manifests in multiple end uses leading to
economic diversification and industrial
rejuvenation, benefiting local economies
and the workforce. Fourth, it could provide
a lucrative exit strategy for stranded
and stressed coal plants. And fifth,
repurposing coal plant equipment (e.g.
the turbo-generator) allows for retaining
a part of the reactive power service for
voltage control originally provided by the
coal plant, a valuable service when rapidly
adding renewable energy. "
Repurposing is clearly a business opportunity.
One of the earliest firms to
get into turning dead plants into live opportunities
is TRC, a firm headquartered
in Windsor, Connecticut, which began
operations through a connection with
Travelers Insurance, and was incorporated
in 1969 as The Research Corporation
of New England. TRC describes its
" RE POWER " program as " an integrated
approach that manages the transition of
end-of-life fossil fuel power plants from
26
Recent projects include the 2017 removal
of one of three large gas-fired units
at the Los Angeles Department of Water
and Power's Scattergood plant. This complex,
18-month project involved decommissioning
the unit without disrupting the
other two operating units. Repurposing
consisted of replacing the conventional
gas boiler with a combined cycle turbine
and two simple cycle turbines.
In 2001, the Frontier Group of Companies,
headquartered in Buffalo, New
York, formed to bring together " strategically
aligned businesses with experience
and capabilities in the area of large-scale
industrial and commercial facility reuse,
repurposing and redevelopment. The
companies of the Frontier Group include
industry leading operations for industrial
demolition, industrial dismantling, asset
recovery, equipment repurposing, industrial
clean up, site remediation, brownfield
redevelopment, facility acquisition,
real estate development, energy exploration,
energy production, and materials
recycling. " The Frontier Group says it is
also developing multiple green energy
facilities by transforming shuttered fossil
fuel power plants into solar farms producing
" clean, green electricity. "
In 2019, Frontier Group bought American
Electric Power's shuttered five-unit
Philip Sporn coal-fired plant in Mason
County, West Virginia. Earlier this year,
Frontier Group demolished the 450-MW
Sporn Unit 5 (the other four units had
nameplate capacities of 145-MW each).
www.powermag.com
■ Plant transitioning, involving " strategic
planning and recommendations for
potential end use of property/electrical
infrastructure, decommissioning
and asset recovery strategies and predemolition
planning activities. "
■ Decommissioning, including " power
plant decommissioning and demolition,
site remediation and hazardous
materials abatement and redevelopment
planning. "
■ Repurposing/reuse, meaning " redevelopment
activities to allow for full
use of the power plant site location,
providing community benefit and/or
enabling the sale of the asset for commercial
purposes. "
A Nuclear Caveat
A caveat here. When talking about repurposing
unneeded power plants, the
discussion is about fossil units, particularly
coal-fueled generators. Nuclear
presents special, difficult circumstances,
including lurking radiation and onsite
spent fuel, that vastly complicate what
can be done with surplus nukes. A federal
agency, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, approves and oversees
the entire decommissioning process.
In a press release, Frontier CEO David
Franjoine said, " Since we acquired the
former power plant, we have invested
significant
resources
into
repositioning
this 280-acre brownfield site including
preparing a plan to transform this
brownfield into a modern industrial park, "
The site, he said, is near a recently announced
Nucor steel plant, and has the
necessary utilities and infrastructure to
attract companies specializing in valueadded
steel, energy, material handling,
and transportation logistics.
EPRI Advice to Sellers
For utility companies with dead coal
plants, or plans to euthanize current
plants, the Electric Power Research Institute
(EPRI) offers advice on how to think
about these projects. In a 2019 report, " A
Comprehensive Approach to Repurposing
Retired Coal Power Plant Sites: Transforming
Liabilities to Assets, " based on
case studies, EPRI advances the concept
of " comprehensive repurposing. " Its researchers
wrote, " Comprehensive repurposing
may provide a new methodology
for repurposing retired coal power plants.
While environmental remediation is often
a singular initial focus, comprehensive repurposing
suggests a broader initial focus
to more holistically and expeditiously identify
challenges and sustainable solutions.
" A key focus of comprehensive repurposing
is bringing relevant parties
together early in the process to holistically
find solutions to complex problems.
Accordingly, utility companies may find
it beneficial initially to form an internal
comprehensive repurposing task force
composed of representatives of all relevant
internal departments and possibly
key external advisors (economic development
officials, consultants, etc.). The
task force's mandate might be to identify
and implement market-driven candidate
sites for repurposing. " ■
-Kennedy Maize is a veteran energy reporter
and a frequent contributor to POWER.
POWER | June 2022
http://www.powermag.com
POWER June 2022
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER June 2022
POWER June 2022 - Intro
POWER June 2022 - Cover1
POWER June 2022 - Cover2
POWER June 2022 - 1
POWER June 2022 - 2
POWER June 2022 - 3
POWER June 2022 - 4
POWER June 2022 - 5
POWER June 2022 - 6
POWER June 2022 - 7
POWER June 2022 - 8
POWER June 2022 - 9
POWER June 2022 - 10
POWER June 2022 - 11
POWER June 2022 - 12
POWER June 2022 - 13
POWER June 2022 - 14
POWER June 2022 - 15
POWER June 2022 - 16
POWER June 2022 - 17
POWER June 2022 - 18
POWER June 2022 - 19
POWER June 2022 - 20
POWER June 2022 - 21
POWER June 2022 - 22
POWER June 2022 - 23
POWER June 2022 - 24
POWER June 2022 - 25
POWER June 2022 - 26
POWER June 2022 - 27
POWER June 2022 - 28
POWER June 2022 - 29
POWER June 2022 - 30
POWER June 2022 - 31
POWER June 2022 - 32
POWER June 2022 - 33
POWER June 2022 - 34
POWER June 2022 - 35
POWER June 2022 - 36
POWER June 2022 - 37
POWER June 2022 - 38
POWER June 2022 - 39
POWER June 2022 - 40
POWER June 2022 - 41
POWER June 2022 - 42
POWER June 2022 - 43
POWER June 2022 - 44
POWER June 2022 - Cover3
POWER June 2022 - Cover4
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